Archive for October, 2007

By Roger White

I should be clear up front. I’m not a nationalist. Nor am I a tribalist, nor an internationalist, nor a municipalist. Peoples from all over the globe have been figuring out how to organize themselves into various collectives long before I came onto the scene and no one in any of these groups has ever bothered to ask me what I thought about their decisions. I won’t hold my breath.

I do believe in free association and federalism because they usually represent the most non-coercive avenues for people to develop ways to live together in self-determined freedom and community. Anarchists have traditionally been particularly hostile to nations and have often attributed the worst crimes of states to them. This rejection of nations and their struggles for self- rule (nationalism) may not be the same as the anarchist demand for no rule, but getting free from foreign domination is a step in the right direction. This is one reason why anti- authoritarians (including anarchists) have generally supported anti- imperialist movements regardless of their nationalist aspirations.

The rejection of nationalism by many North American anarchists is often an expression of a colonial mindset that requires all of the peoples of the world fighting for liberation to define their social selves in relation to the class war. In this war there are two classes- the workers and the ruling class. The downtrodden of the world are to see themselves as workers. For this identity shift we gain the solidarity of the class war anarchists.

Other anarchists who don’t subscribe to industrial age class war dogma simply would like to see anarchists cut their ties to the left completely. This severance would presumably free them of all of the political baggage that solidarity with revolutionary nationalists and indigenous autonomist struggles attract. The two above interpretations of the international role and responsibility of the anarchist movement with respect to the fight against neo-colonialism and imperialism are not the ideas of an anti-state fringe. They represent the two strongest tendencies in the North American scene.

Not all nations are states. In fact there are about 1600 nations in existence today (about eight times the number of states in the world). And as Sylvia Walby points out in her essay “The Myth of the Nation-State,” “Nation-states are actually very rare as existing social and political forms…there are many states, but very few nation-states. The notion that there have been neatly bounded societies …is inadequate.” (Sylvia Walby, The Myth of the Nation- State: theorizing society and polities in a global era. British Sociological Association, August 2003). There are many different types of states- theocratic-states (the Vatican, Iran), city-states (Singapore, Luxemburg), familial states (Saudi Arabia) tribal- states (Israel), multinational states (Canada, Spain) and super-states (the United Nations). Each type of state has been implicated in crimes against various peoples over their histories. Since the European enlightenment these various social groupings that states have succeeded in attaching themselves to have been understood by the left as backward and atavistic. They argue that peoples of the world should transcend things like families, clans, tribes, and nations and embrace “universal” principals of human identity. In truth, many of the social ideals that the left has asserted as universal are culturally situated in 19th century Europe.

The Politics of Arrogance

It’s regular for North American anarchists to use their political label as a synonym for anti-authoritarian; although one is a term referring to a specific social and political movement born in the 1800’s in Europe and the other is a broad description of a political tendency that has reared its head in some form in just about every society over the last few centuries. A mainstream definition of authoritarian describes someone who favors “blind submission to authority; of relating to, favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people.” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=authoritarian&x=0&y=0)

Now certainly anarchists are not the only folks on the world scene who are against the “blind submission to authority” and the “concentration of power” in an unaccountable leader. But this easy inter-changeability is an effect of a larger attitudinal cause. The attitude being that non-white legacies of struggle and our histories of stateless, communal modes of existence are at best, irrelevancies to the current struggles against state/ corporate domination or, at worst, an obstacle to be swept aside.

This attitude pervades the intellectual history of all the major European political traditions- not just anarchism. But if those of us who identify with the historical movement for non-hierarchical, free and non- coercive social relations don’t begin to fundamentally rethink the way we understand our struggle both internally and externally, we will lose international allies and continue to alienate ones closer to home.

A different way of understanding anarchism in relation to the centuries-old struggle against arbitrary power is to view it as the newest member of a global family that includes numerous historical and present day communal societies and struggles against authority. The village communalism of the Ibo, and First Nations like the Zuni and the Hopi are a part of the family. The indigenous autonomist movements for self determination going on today in West Papua and Chiapas, Mexico with the EZLN are a part of the family. The international prison abolitionist movement, perhaps to most coordinated attack on the state’s monopoly of the administration of justice, has deep anti-authoritarian currents, just as the numerous stateless hunter and gatherer bands, clans, and nomadic tribes that have managed to survive centuries without armies, flags, or money systems do.

Anarchist movements have also played a part in the fight against authority. Some valiant, if rather short-lived, episodes include the Spanish CNT and FAI battles during the 1930’s and the Paris Commune 50 years earlier. The full record shows that North American anarchists haven’t had much experience in maintaining long-term stateless, social formations. But they have produced theory and “analysis”- plenty of it. And it’s this busy intellectualism that has scorned and turned its nose up at our national struggles for liberation as “statist” and “reformist” while demanding that global south anti-authoritarians adopt anarchism’s workerist mantle or conform to some romantic notion of how pre-agricultural peoples lived. To help put this in context it’s important to look at the universalist underpinnings of the traditional anarchist worldview and how its adherents understand their movement in relation to other struggles around the non- European world.

Colonial Universalism

To many, a critique of universalism on the left will seem like an anachronism. After all, if post-modern social philosophy has had any discernable political thrust, it’s been in opposition to foundationalist claims and totalizing theories of human nature, relations, and power. But despite the last six decades of post-world war II thinking and action against universalism, there are still plenty of stubborn anarchists who refuse to let go of the most Euro-centric aspects of historical materialism.

Marx’s critique of capitalism has had an influence way beyond those who choose to identify themselves as marxists. On the left, it has encouraged analysis that puts the class struggle at the center of the historical stage. Before the identity movements of the late 60’s this analysis would regularly portray racism and other historical oppressions as subalterns of class oppression. But after these movements began to challenge some of the dogmas of class struggle orthodoxy some accommodations were made.

Progressives embraced multiculturalism even as they focused most of their attention towards corporate globalism and the international institutions that protect them. Marxists supported revolutionary nationalism, arguing that the modern vanguard is the black and brown working class. Even liberals argued for a cultural pluralism that made limited accommodations for social, cultural and religious differences while clinging to the last vestiges of the welfare state. Anarchists have largely rejected such left-of-center developments in response to the legacy of white supremacy and cultural imperialism, but have failed to develop their own. The default has been a rigid century and a half-old economic determinism that even some marxists have abandoned.

The embrace of universalism by anarchists has had a significant impact on their analysis of important issues and events. The interpretation of imperialism as an economically driven regime of capital and the view of nationalism as inherently retrograde and divisive owes a lot to the internal logic of universalism. If imperialism has as much to do with cultural hegemony or geo-political dominance as the capitalist market expansion and raw material exploitation of private business, then maybe an international workers revolution may not come first or be the most fundamental task before all the world’s oppressed. If nations and national liberation movements are not necessarily the statist antithesis of internationalism but represent just another social grouping of peoples with a common land, culture, and language, some of whom are willing to fight to maintain their ways of life, then maybe anarchists need to rethink their opposition to nationalism.

European universalism has never truly been about the recognition of our common humanity. In practice it’s been about forcing the particular norms, prejudices and ideals of white, Christian cultures on the rest of the peoples of the earth, sometimes through economic domination, sometimes through cultural imperialism, sometimes through force.

Christendom used appeals to universalism as a justification for crusades and the persecution of “non believers” and native populations practicing their traditional religions in various parts of the world. For left internationalists, universalism provided a nice humanitarian cover for a massive social engineering project that sought to strip the masses of their national and communal identities in exchange for a workerist one because, as Murry Bookchin put it, there was a “need to achieve universality in order to abolish class society.” (Murry Bookchin. “Nationalism and the ‘National Question’” www.democracynature.org/dn/vol2/bookchin_nationalism.htm March 1993 P.1).

Under this view the universality and primacy of the class struggle is a strategic necessity for the overthrow of the capitalist order. It’s not a conclusion that comes out of the study and analysis of the history, situation and cultures of all peoples. At this stage, anarchists, autonomists, abolitionists and anti-authoritarians of color can not afford to be swept up by theories that have never bothered to view non-white peoples as historical subjects. We are not mere props in the political stagecraft of white leftists.

Political universalism is part of the philosophical residue of Anglo-European colonialism. Today we witness this in the attempts of the U.S. to impose democracy in the Middle East and other parts of the world. One of the problems with this view is that it “offers a hegemonic view of existence by which the experiences, values and expectations of a dominant cultural are held to be true for all humanity” and is a “crucial feature of imperial hegemony because its assumption of a common humanity underlies [an] imperial discourse for the advancement or improvement of the colonized, goals that mask the extensive… exploitation of the colony.” (Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. Post Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. Routledge New York, NY 2000).

So when the anarchists behind the FAQ web-site project declare that anarchists “oppose nationalism in all its forms as harmful to the interests of those who make up a given nation and their cultural identities,” (Are Anarchist Against Nationalism? The Anarchist FAQ. Alternative Media Project. www.infoshop.org/faq/secD6.html) we recognize that the blatant condescension imbued in those sentiments are a reflection of the conviction that they know what’s best for the colonized, not the colonized themselves.

No War But The Class War

Ever since Antonio Gramsci’s writings on marxism in the 20’s and 30’s the left has been re-thinking the role of the worker in revolutionary practice. He argued that cultural hegemony was the key to class subordination and that in order to change economic and political structures we had to take over the institutions that transmit culture- the schools, the church, the media, etc. This shift from the economic determinism of orthodox marxism to the identitarian pluralism of what some call “cultural marxism” lead a shift in emphasis away from the worker towards a broader group of the marginalized that included women, racial and sexual minorities and outlaws.

This thinking had little effect on the way marxist organizations and regimes have operated over the last 90 years. Groups like the Spartacist League in the U.S. have spent decades trashing black nationalism and feminism as ‘petty bourgeois’ and ’separatist’ and claiming that their class analysis of racism, sexism, and other social systems of hierarchy (as by- products or divide and conquer tactics of capitalism) is more relevant to people of color and women than our own studies of how white supremacy and patriarchy have maintained systems of domination over us. Many Marxists groups have had an even worse record on LGBT liberation.

Khrushchev’s imperial attitude towards Mao’s peasant-led cultural revolution in China reflected, in part, his inability to make common cause with an Asian leader with the audacity to question the dogmas of soviet communism. As the U.K. Guardian noted a few years back “Mao deeply resented the Soviet assumption of superiority towards China, which he described as the unacceptable behaviour of “a father towards his son.” (John Gittings, The day Khrushchev and Chairman Mao saw red Spitting images mark the end of the Sino-Soviet alliance. The Guardian (UK) 27 November 2001). Its been argued by anarchists like Murray Bookchin that the Marxist support for nationalist movements is strategic not ideological. In this instance we can attribute the failure of the two most powerful and populous communist countries on the globe to unite against the capitalist world in large part to a colonialist mentality that couldn’t accept non-white regimes who strayed too far from the European materialist intellectual plantation- strategy be damned.

The most organized elements of North American anarchism today are class war based and anti- nationalist. The Northeast Federation of Anarcho- Communists state “anarchists oppose the idea of nationalism” and instead “believe in waging a class war.” (Northeast Federation of Anarcho-Communists. nefac.northernhacking.org/newswire/display_any/94 November 2002). The Workers Solidarity Alliance equates nationalism with “the idea that somehow both the rich and poor can be wrapped in the same flag and thus have the same interests…” (Against the Madness. Workers Solidarity Alliance. flag.blackened.net/revolt/issues/war/afghan/statements/wsa_se01.html.) Of course class war anarchists attempt to wrap the victims of colonial imperialism and the beneficiaries of it together in the same black flag as if the two have the same interests. As it turns out, it’s just as hard for whites to give up imperial race privilege as it is for rich people to give up class privilege.

Rather than acknowledging the importance of class stratification along side other societal hierarchies and recognizing that each of them are potentially as repressive and exploitative as the other depending on the social context, class war anarchists have adopted a hierarchy of oppressions that makes the class war the primary struggle and the worker the primary agent of that struggle. The popular slogan “no war but the class war” masks a deep historical truth over which many white leftists are still in denial. White elites and their dupes, pawns, agents and allies have been waging a race war on peoples of color for centuries. When people of color who share a common culture, language and land decide it’s time to make defending ourselves a priority, we’re told by anarchists that they “never call for the victory of the dominated country over the imperialist. Instead we call for a victory of the workers (and peasants) of that country against both home and foreign exploiters (in effect, ‘no war but the class war’)” Are Anarchist Against Nationalism? (The Anarchist FAQ. Alternative Media Project. www.infoshop.org/faq/secD6.html)

If communities of color can’t count on anarchists to do more than merely recognize their ‘right’ to defend themselves against white imperialism, then perhaps all anarchists can expect from communities of color is the recognition that they have a right to protest against the IMF every time they meet. If the price of solidarity is that we abandon our communal identities and accept one created for us by some left-wing Euro- elites over 150 years ago, then the hope of developing closer alliances with other movements against authority around the globe is doomed.

Anti-imperialist anti-nationalism

Many anarchists have recognized that opposition to native or national self- determination against Euro- Anglo colonial domination is a betrayal of their anti- authoritarian principals and commitment to anti- racism. This is why despite all the finger wagging that goes on by the scribe defenders of the anarchist faith about global south movements not being anarchist enough, there is a long history of anarchist solidarity with nationalist movements for self rule. Lucien van der Walt, a South African anarchist activist, details the many national struggles anarchists have been involved in his essay “Towards a History of Anarchist Anti- Imperialism.” He mentioned how groups like the Anarchist Group of Indigenous Algerians, the Mexican Liberal Party and other anti- imperialist anarchists “paid in blood for [their] opposition to imperial domination and control.” (Van der Walt, Lucien. Towards a History of Anarchist Anti-Imperialism. Northeast Federation of Anarcho-Communists. nefac.net/node/261).

The movements and organizations he wrote about were by-and-large made up of activists of color working in their own struggles for both social revolution and national liberation. What these activists didn’t do was refuse to fight along side nationalists because they believed that the class war was the most important or only fight worth engaging in. They didn’t try to convince their people that getting rid of the factory bosses, of whom their were relatively few, was a bigger priority than getting rid of the colonial administrators who controlled where they could go and when they could go there, how or whether they could practice their faith, and what they could produce on their own land, among other things. They didn’t spend time trying to foment hatred between urban workers (who represented a relatively privileged class in many of these countries) and the middle classes in an effort to polarize their nation into a class war. They knew that the colonial masters controlled both groups and would only use internal divisions to solidify their own domination. They instead worked to educate the masses about how class also contributed to their oppression and how national liberation wouldn’t necessarily address those issues.

National liberation struggles don’t end when the imperialists decide that economic control and the threat of military intervention are more effective means of domination than army bases and colonial governments on native soil. They continue through early independence when the imperialist powers are busy stabilizing their puppet regimes, and corporate markets. It continues through the imposition of neo-liberal economic pressures and dictates from organizations like the IMF, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization along with a host of regional outfits and private organized interests. And if and when those mechanisms aren’t enough, the Security Council or the U.S. military will step in. International solidarity is not about committing to a process. It’s about committing to a people and their struggle for liberation. This commitment means viewing solidarity not as a reward for doctrinal compliance among the colonized but as a discourse betweens peoples and across cultures about how we all can live, not in some imposed western ideal of freedom and equality but in a self- determined freedom where different people decide for themselves how they will arrange their affairs. This doesn’t mean that anarchists always must agree and when we don’t we should support voices in those societies who are committed to the visions most like our own.

The nation and the state

It’s not that anarchists have always been closed to nationalist arguments or have never questioned class war fundamentalism. Hakim Bey in his book Millennium suggests that anarchists align their struggles against authority with anti- colonial and nationalist movements around the globe.(See his chapter “Notes on Nationalism” Hakim Bey Millennium Autonomedia & Garden of Delight. 1996). Bob Black has rightly observed that the anarchist ideal of the worker revolutionary in syndicalism is more popular among college professors than with workers in North America. (Bob Black. Anarchy after Leftism. Cal Press 1997 p. 149) Even Bookchin in his 1971 essay “Listen Marxist” offered a devastating critique of class war fundamentalism and argued that “Marx’s emphasis on the industrial proletariat as the ‘agent’ of revolutionary change, and his ‘class analysis’ in explaining the transition from a class to a classless society” are “false in the context of our time.” (Murray Bookchin. Post Scarcity Anarchism. Ramparts Press 1971 p.211). The problem is that these writers and others either hide in the safe shadow of critique where they debunk but don’t bother to offer alternatives (Black) or come up with alternatives just as colonial as the universal worker (Bookchin gives us the universal citizen).

But there’s an even bigger problem. Not only do these critics and theorists fail to offer non-colonial alternatives, they actually find time to dismiss efforts among activists of color and anarcho- feminists who dare to work for liberation from domination from our own self identities. Black dismisses anarcho- feminism as “separatist in tendency” and “oriented more toward statist feminism than anarchism.” (Black, p.150). Bookchin in his essay Nationalism and the National Question lamented that the New Left in the 60’s embraced “the particularism into which racial politics had degenerated instead of the potential universalism (read European) of a humanitas…the New Left placed blacks, colonial peoples, and even totalitarian colonial nations on the top of its theoretical pyramid, endowing them with a commanding or ‘hegemonic’ position in relation to whites, Euro-Americans, and bourgeois- democratic nations.” He adds, “In the 1970’s this particularistic strategy was adopted by certain feminists…” (Bookchin. Nationalism and the National Question P. 11)

Bookchin’s assertion that blacks and “colonial peoples” occupied the top of some theoretical new left pyramid is reminiscent of the stereotypical poor white in the U.S. who’s convinced that blacks get all the breaks and the reason for their own condition has more to do with affirmative action than with the system of corporate feudalism that they’re the victims of. To the extent that any white radicals on the new left in the early 70’s paid more attention to what black, brown, red and yellow revolutionaries we’re saying than intellectuals like Bookchin, it was because they realized that the prime victims and biggest targets of state/ capitalist repression and exploitation around the world were in communities of color and their voices needed to be taken seriously.

Given the lack of clearly articulated alternatives, it’s not hard to understand why many white anarchists cling to this narrow conception of workers revolution. They feel that nationalism is in opposition to their work because historically its Euro- and Anglo- manifestations have been so closely tied to imperialism, and racism that, for them, it’s not a revolutionary option. But the categorical rejection of all nationalisms due to their perceived hostility to class revolution is not a necessary conclusion of anarchist intellectual history.

Bakunin

For most of Bakunin’s political life he could be described as a pan- Slavic revolutionary nationalist and an anarchist. He didn’t believe that his anti-imperialism and his anarchism were in conflict. He felt “strong sympathy for any national uprising against any form of oppression” declaring that “no one is entitled to impose its costume, its customs, its language and its laws.” (Cited in D. Guerin, 1970, Anarchism, Monthly Review, p. 68) Bakunin was not agnostic on the issue of self-determination. He clearly supported peoples who were fighting for it.

Not only did Bakunin support self- determination, he recognized the distinction between a nation and the state. “The state is not the fatherland, it is the abstraction…of the fatherland. The common people of all countries deeply love their fatherland, but that is a natural real love. The patriotism of the people is not just an idea, it is a fact; but political patriotism, love of the state, is not the faithful expression of that fact…” (“The Political Philosophy of Bakunin” Edited by G.P. Maximoff. The Free Press New York 1953 P.324). Nationalism is not the worship of the state, because it refers to a people and the love that they have for their land, their cultural and their language.

This was before the era of ‘diversity’ so Bakunin didn’t see anything in the commitment people had to the preservation of their national culture to celebrate. But he was smart enough to know that being anti- national was pointless. “Therefore we bow before tradition, before history, or rather, we recognize them, not because they appear to us as abstract barriers raised meta- physically, juridical and politically…but only because they have actually passed into the flesh and blood, into the real thoughts and the will of populations.” (ibid.).

What Bakunin objected to was the principal of nationality because he felt that it wasn’t universal. He gradually became more intolerant of national struggles against colonialism because he saw how these movements inspired national chauvinism and hatred across Europe. His growing internationalism and commitment to workers solidarity put distance between him and national liberation advocates towards the end of his public life. “There is nothing more absurd and at the same time more harmful, more deadly, for the people to uphold the fictitious principal of nationality as the ideal of all the people’s aspirations, nationality is not a universal human principal.” (Maximoff P.325). It’s important to remember that Bakunin’s critique of nationalism was within the context of intra-European conflicts.

True internationalism is not anti-nationalist. It is a constructive ideal that seeks to create mutual respect, solidarity, and alliances among nations. To the extent that class elites attempt to use race, religion, gender, immigrant status, sexuality, age, or disability to divide the people in the name of the nation, anarchists should stand against it. But there are many nationalist struggles that are about self determination and human dignity, not division. The Palestinian struggle comes to mind along with the anti- colonial movement in Puerto Rico. Anarchists may fairly critique the statist elements in these movements. But the across the board opposition to the national unity of people of color in our struggle against imperialism renders many anarchists incapable of supporting even non-state, indigenous movements for autonomy in places like Chiapas, Mexico, or the Tamil struggle for autonomy in Sri Lanka.

Rocker

If there was some level of ambiguity around the relationship between anarchism and nationalism in the 19th century, that ambiguity ended with Rudolf Rocker’s opus Nationalism and Culture. Written in the 1930’s, the book highlighted the role that nationalist appeals were playing in solidifying domestic support for European fascist imperialism abroad and racial hatred at home. It also challenged the mythology of nationhood as an organic social grouping. He wrote “the nation is not the cause, but the result of the state. It is the state that creates the nation, not the nation the state.” (Rudolph Rocker. “Nationalism and Culture” Black Rose Books 1998 (Reprint) Original 1937 P. 200)

The nation is a construction. And political leaders who resort to blood and soil tales of national origins do so because their reactionary nationalism is rooted in appeals to racism and imperialism and therefore needs a biological- land tie. But the fact that nations are developed by human action does not somehow invalidate their authenticity. Tribes are also human constructions, as are families, bands, etc… The only way to judge the usefulness of different social groupings is by observing their longevity and their tendency to support the type of lasting bonds between people that make human survival and growth possible. Families, and ethnical based tribes have survived the three most significant revolutions in human history- agriculture, industry, and the information age. Nations are a newer development. Only time will tell whether this construct will survive globalization and what some call ‘the new world order.’

For Rocker the free-city of Europe’s middle ages represented “that great epoch…of federalism whereby European culture was preserved from total submersion and the political influence of the arising royalty was for a long time confined to the non- urban country.” (Rocker P.2). He compared this age to the rise of the monarchical nation- state and claimed that among the medieval, European men of the free- cities “there never existed…those rigid, insurmountable barriers which arose with the appearance of the national states in Europe.” (Rocker P.3).

Rocker’s comparison of the golden age of autonomous, federated medieval cities to the rise of the nation wasn’t very useful. This is because the two are different in kind. The city is a geographic designation, like a province, or a country, or a county. A nation is a human designation- like a family, a tribe, or a gang.. This distinction is important because it sharpens the dilemma that anarchists of color find themselves in when we’re sorting through our politics. Since Rocker slammed the door shut on nationalism, non-white anarchists have been told to choose between our nation (or people) and our social philosophy. This choice is much more profound and, in the end, unnecessary, than whether we think cities are better units of social organization than counties. This choice has also led some to abandon anarchism.

Perhaps the most illustrative passage in Rocker’s book on the colonial character of universalism and its role in the construction of anti-nationalism can be found in his description of the social glue that tied medieval man together. “Medieval man felt himself to be bound up with a single, uniform culture…It was the community of Christendom which included all the scattered units of the Christian world and spiritually unified them.” (Ibid.). Fair enough. But now for the kicker. “Church and empire likewise had root in this universal idea…For pope and emperor Christianity was the necessary ideological basis for the realization of a new world dominion…For medieval man it was the symbol of a great spiritual community…” but “while the Christian idea united them, the idea of the nation separated and organized them into antagonistic camps.” (Ibid.).

What Rocker leaves out are the crusades, the inquisitions, the witch burnings, the Jewish pogroms, the slaughter of pagans. And that’s only in Europe. By the late medieval period the conquistadors were in Central and South America committing genocide against the heathen indigenous populations in the name of Christianity. The Church may have had a unifying effect for some Europeans, but this unity was achieved with the blood of millions both inside and outside of the continent. I’ll take the divisions of the nation over the “unity” of the Christian Church any day.

For all its limitations, Rocker’s Nationalism and Culture was a mammoth effort and clearly a classic of anarchist literature. More than any other book, it detailed the connections between reactionary nationalism and racism and made clear how the state used both to enhance its power over the masses. While his sweeping dismissal of all nationalism is regrettable, it is at least politically understandable within the context of the rise of Euro-fascism in the 1930’s. What’s harder to reconcile are post-world war II anarchists who have witnessed the anti-colonial movements in the global south and still maintain that national movements for liberation against colonialism are “the same” as the imperial nationalist movements of Europe in the last two centuries.

Colonial Contemporaries

Murry Bookchin addressed himself specifically to anarchist universalism within the context of the ‘national question’ in 1993. After echoing Rocker’s idyllic view of the free cities of medieval Europe, he warned “the great role assigned to reason by the enlightenment may well be in grave doubt” if we forget that “our true social affinities are based on citizenship, equality and a universalistic sense of a common humanity.” (Bookchin, “Nationalism and the National Question” P. 11)

Are ‘our’ true affinities based on citizenship? I’m not sure that the tens of millions of non- citizens in the U.S. who, due to their status as undocumented immigrants, would agree. In fact, citizenship has historically been a construction of property owners as a way to exercise privilege and power over poor migrants, and religious and racial minorities. This has been true from Roman times to present day America. And affinities based on a “universalistic sense of a common humanity” sound good, but who gets to define what that common humanity is? The First International (an almost exclusively European affair)? Or maybe a bunch of Institute for Social Ecology graduates?

The underlying issue is not the lack of diversity of various left circles and movements that purport to represent universal principals. It’s the very supposition that any single movement or political ideal could represent any meaningful global consensus on how communities should arrange their social institutions. Anarchists have their ideas and should work in their communities to, among other things, demonstrate that those ideas can work in the real world for other peoples around the globe. Some success in this endeavor should be a prerequisite for international anarchist criticism of national liberation and indigenous struggles against western imperialism.

In the essay Bookchin evokes fondly the lyrics of the socialist anthem the Internationale — “Tis the final conflict!”– and longs for the “sense of universalistic commitment” that those words embodied. (Ibid.) Forgive me for not being two inspired by the image of Bookchin and a group of his old left New York buddies, hunched over in a semi- circle ready to bust a note. But he goes into attack mode when he picks up where Rocker left off and applies his across-the-board rejection of nationalism to the colonial struggles of Africa, Asia, and the Americas of the 1950’s and 60’s. Bookchin mocked the national liberation movements of the period through his sophomoric use of quotes in describing their “attempts to achieve ‘autonomy’ from imperialism…even at the expense of a popular democracy in the colonized world.” (Bookchin, “Nationalism and the National Question” P. 10)

Bookchin doesn’t bother to identify one colonial popular democracy (a contradiction in terms) that was overthrown by nationalists or native movements in the quest for autonomy. He doesn’t because none existed. But that’s alright…we all know that darkies are always better off under white rule. Bookchin’s larger point is that the nice, idealistic, white kids in the new left got duped and intimidated into supporting authoritarian national liberation movements by the usual assortment of black national revolutionary thugs, solemn and sympathetic Native Americans fighting to hang on to their land, Latino political gangs lurking in the barrio, and other stereotypical ghosts of 1960’s radical mythology. It’s astonishing that at this late date Bookchin would still be walking around blaming black revolutionary nationalists and Asian Maoists for the decline of the new left and the rise of ‘micro nationalism.’ It’s always easier to blame others than it is to look in the mirror.

‘Post Left’ Colonialism

There seems to be a developing split between anarchist journal writers and activists on the national question. To their credit, lots of anarchists have participated in anti-imperialist struggles with respect for the people with whom they’ve struggled. Currently, anarchist organizers and cultural workers in North America are increasingly throwing off the shackles of dogma and are doing solidarity work with national and autonomous movements against colonialism. But as this divergence has taken place, the colonial anarchists have become even more desperate in their attempt to hang on to the tradition. And on this front the attempt to protect colonial anarchy has been led not by the class war anarchists, but by a loosely knit network of green and primitivist intellectuals who argue that anarchists should cut their lingering ties to the left altogether.

A 1993 screed by Fredy Perlman that appeared in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed asserts that the fascist nationalism of Europe in the 1930’s and 40’s “could now be applied to Africans as well as Navahos, Apaches as well as Palestinians. The borrowings from Mussolini, Hitler, and the Zionists are judiciously covered up, because Mussolini and Hitler failed to hold on to their seized power…” (Fredy Perlman, “The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism” Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. #37, Summer 1993).

This appeared in the same journal that did a four-part series called ‘Post- Left Anarchy’ in the fall of 1999 in which Lawrence Jarach reprimanded anarchists who dared to show solidarity with the EZLN for their “uncritical support.” “The name of the organization should be enough to cause anarchists to pause” (Zapatista National Liberation Army) because “national liberation has never been part of the anarchist agenda…The EZLN, for all its revolutionary posturing, is a broad based democratic movement for progressive social change within the fabric of the Mexican state.” (Lawerence Jarach, “Don’t let the Left (overs) Ruin Your Appetite” Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #48, Fall- Winter 1999-2000). How do you even engage with people about colonialism who treat “Africans” as some sort of Hitler-inspired nationalist monolith or who claim that indigenous autonomists who have successfully sustained a decade-old uprising through disciplined armed struggle are basically revolutionary poseurs? Generally, you don’t.

But in the Spring 2002 issue of Green Anarchy a Zapatista did. It was a response to an article that appeared in the paper a few months earlier entitled “The EZLN is NOT Anarchist.” The article labels the EZLN as “fundamentally reformist” not working towards anything “that could not be provided for by capitalism.” (Green Anarchy. The EZLN is NOT Anarchist. #6 Summer 2001). The piece went on to instruct anarchists to find ways to “intervene in a way that is fitting with one’s aims, in a way that moves one’s revolutionary anarchist project forward.” (Green Anarchy. A Zapatista Response to The EZLN is NOT Anarchist #8 Spring 2002 P. 3 greenanarchy.org/zine/GA08/zapatistaresponse.php)

The Zapatista responded “It would be difficult for us to design a more concise list of colonial words and attitudes than those used in this sentence. “Intervene?” “moves one’s ‘project’ forward?” Mexicans have a very well developed understanding of what ‘intervention’ entails.” (Green Anarchy P. 4) He ended with this, “Colonialism is one of the many enemies we are fighting in this world and so long as North Americans reinforce colonial thought patterns in their ‘revolutionary’ struggles, they will never be on the side of any anti- colonial struggle anywhere. We in the Zapatista struggle have never asked anyone for unflinching, uncritical support. What we have asked the world to do is respect the historical context we are in and think about the actions we do to pull ourselves from under the boots of oppression.” (Ibid.).

If and when North American anarchists learn how to do this with all of the struggles against colonial and neo-colonial domination around the globe- whether they’re nationalist or go under some other label, then we’ll be welcomed into a much larger and richer international tradition of people’s struggles against domination. This is where we belong.

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By Tom Lane
December 23, 1996

Introduction

Though Chomsky has written a considerable amount about anarchism in the past three decades, people often ask him for a more tangible, detailed vision of social change. His political analysis never fails to instill outrage and anger with the way the world works, but many readers are left uncertain about what exactly Chomsky would do to change it. Perhaps because they regard his analytical work with such respect, they anticipate he will lay out his goals and strategy with similar precision and clarity, only to be disappointed with his generalized statements of libertarian socialist values. Or perhaps many look to a great intellectual to provide a “master plan” for them to follow step-by-step into a bright shining future.

Yet Chomsky shys away from such pronouncements. He cautions that it is difficult to predict what particular forms a more just social organization will take, or even to know for sure what alternatives to the current system are ideal. Only experience can show us the best answers to these questions, he says. What should guide us along the way are a general set of principles which will underly whatever specific forms our future society will take. For Chomsky, those principles arise from the historical trend of thought and action known as anarchism.

Chomsky warns that little can be said about anarchism on a very general level. “I haven’t tried to write anything systematic about these topics, nor do I know of anything by others that I could recommend,” he wrote to me in reply to a set of questions on the subject. He’s written here and there about it, notably in the recent Powers and Prospects, but there just isn’t a lot to say in general terms. “The interest lies in the applications,” he thinks, “but these are specific to time and place.

“In Latin America,” Chomsky says, “I talked about many of these topics, and far more important, learned about them from people who are actually doing things, a good deal of which had an anarchist flavor. Also had a chance to meet with lively and interesting groups of anarchists, from Buenos Aires to Belem at the mouth of the Amazon (the latter I didn’t know about at all — amazing where our friends show up). But the discussions were much more focused and specific than I often see here; and rightly, I think.”

As such, Chomsky’s responses to these questions are general and terse. However, as a brief introduction to some of his thoughts on anarchism, perhaps they may inspire the reader to pursue other writings on the subject (a list appears at the end of the questions), and more importantly, to develop the concept of anarchism through the process of working for a more free and democratic society.

Tom Lane

Answers from Chomsky to eight questions on anarchism

General comment on all the questions:

No one owns the term “anarchism.” It is used for a wide range of different currents of thought and action, varying widely. There are many self-styled anarchists who insist, often with great passion, that theirs is the only right way, and that others do not merit the term (and maybe are criminals of one or another sort). A look at the contemporary anarchist literature, particularly in the West and in intellectual circles (they may not like the term), will quickly show that a large part of it is denunciation of others for their deviations, rather as in the Marxist-Leninist sectarian literature. The ratio of such material to constructive work is depressingly high.

Personally, I have no confidence in my own views about the “right way,” and am unimpressed with the confident pronouncements of others, including good friends. I feel that far too little is understood to be able to say very much with any confidence. We can try to formulate our long-term visions, our goals, our ideals; and we can (and should) dedicate ourselves to working on issues of human significance. But the gap between the two is often considerable, and I rarely see any way to bridge it except at a very vague and general level. These qualities of mine (perhaps defects, perhaps not) will show up in the (very brief) responses I will make to your questions.

1. What are the intellectual roots of anarchist thought, and what movements have developed and animated it throughout history?

The currents of anarchist thought that interest me (there are many) have their roots, I think, in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, and even trace back in interesting ways to the scientific revolution of the 17th century, including aspects that are often considered reactionary, like Cartesian rationalism. There’s literature on the topic (historian of ideas Harry Bracken, for one; I’ve written about it too). Won’t try to recapitulate here, except to say that I tend to agree with the important anarchosyndicalist writer and activist Rudolf Rocker that classical liberal ideas were wrecked on the shoals of industrial capitalism, never to recover (I’m referring to Rocker in the 1930s; decades later, he thought differently). The ideas have been reinvented continually; in my opinion, because they reflect real human needs and perceptions. The Spanish Civil War is perhaps the most important case, though we should recall that the anarchist revolution that swept over a good part of Spain in 1936, taking various forms, was not a spontaneous upsurge, but had been prepared in many decades of education, organization, struggle, defeat, and sometimes victories. It was very significant. Sufficiently so as to call down the wrath of every major power system: Stalinism, fascism, western liberalism, most intellectual currents and their doctrinal institutions — all combined to condemn and destroy the anarchist revolution, as they did; a sign of its significance, in my opinion.

2. Critics complain that anarchism is “formless, utopian.” You counter that each stage of history has its own forms of authority and oppression which must be challenged, therefore no fixed doctrine can apply. In your opinion, what specific realization of anarchism is appropriate in this epoch?

I tend to agree that anarchism is formless and utopian, though hardly more so than the inane doctrines of neoliberalism, Marxism-Leninism, and other ideologies that have appealed to the powerful and their intellectual servants over the years, for reasons that are all too easy to explain. The reason for the general formlessness and intellectual vacuity (often disguised in big words, but that is again in the self-interest of intellectuals) is that we do not understand very much about complex systems, such as human societies; and have only intuitions of limited validity as to the ways they should be reshaped and constructed.

Anarchism, in my view, is an expression of the idea that the burden of proof is always on those who argue that authority and domination are necessary. They have to demonstrate, with powerful argument, that that conclusion is correct. If they cannot, then the institutions they defend should be considered illegitimate. How one should react to illegitimate authority depends on circumstances and conditions: there are no formulas.

In the present period, the issues arise across the board, as they commonly do: from personal relations in the family and elsewhere, to the international political/economic order. And anarchist ideas — challenging authority and insisting that it justify itself — are appropriate at all levels.

3. What sort of conception of human nature is anarchism predicated on? Would people have less incentive to work in an egalitarian society? Would an absence of government allow the strong to dominate the weak? Would democratic decision-making result in excessive conflict, indecision and “mob rule”?

As I understand the term “anarchism,” it is based on the hope (in our state of ignorance, we cannot go beyond that) that core elements of human nature include sentiments of solidarity, mutual support, sympathy, concern for others, and so on.

Would people work less in an egalitarian society? Yes, insofar as they are driven to work by the need for survival; or by material reward, a kind of pathology, I believe, like the kind of pathology that leads some to take pleasure from torturing others. Those who find reasonable the classical liberal doctrine that the impulse to engage in creative work is at the core of human nature — something we see constantly, I think, from children to the elderly, when circumstances allow — will be very suspicious of these doctrines, which are highly serviceable to power and authority, but seem to have no other merits.

Would an absence of government allow the strong to dominate the weak? We don’t know. If so, then forms of social organization would have to be constructed — there are many possibilities — to overcome this crime.

What would be the consequences of democratic decision-making? The answers are unknown. We would have to learn by trial. Let’s try it and find out.

4. Anarchism is sometimes called libertarian socialism — How does it differ from other ideologies that are often associated with socialism, such as Leninism?

Leninist doctrine holds that a vanguard Party should assume state power and drive the population to economic development, and, by some miracle that is unexplained, to freedom and justice. It is an ideology that naturally appeals greatly to the radical intelligentsia, to whom it affords a justification for their role as state managers. I can’t see any reason — either in logic or history — to take it seriously. Libertarian socialism (including a substantial mainstream of Marxism) dismissed all of this with contempt, quite rightly.

5. Many “anarcho-capitalists” claim that anarchism means the freedom to do what you want with your property and engage in free contract with others. Is capitalism in any way compatible with anarchism as you see it?

Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn’t the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of “free contract” between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.

I should add, however, that I find myself in substantial agreement with people who consider themselves anarcho-capitalists on a whole range of issues; and for some years, was able to write only in their journals. And I also admire their commitment to rationality — which is rare — though I do not think they see the consequences of the doctrines they espouse, or their profound moral failings.

6. How do anarchist principles apply to education? Are grades, requirements and exams good things? What sort of environment is most conducive to free thought and intellectual development?

My feeling, based in part on personal experience in this case, is that a decent education should seek to provide a thread along which a person will travel in his or her own way; good teaching is more a matter of providing water for a plant, to enable it to grow under its own powers, than of filling a vessel with water (highly unoriginal thoughts I should add, paraphrased from writings of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism). These are general principles, which I think are generally valid. How they apply in particular circumstances has to be evaluated case by case, with due humility, and recognition of how little we really understand.

7. Depict, if you can, how an ideal anarchist society would function day-to-day. What sorts of economic and political institutions would exist, and how would they function? Would we have money? Would we shop in stores? Would we own our own homes? Would we have laws? How would we prevent crime?

I wouldn’t dream of trying to do this. These are matters about which we have to learn, by struggle and experiment.

8. What are the prospects for realizing anarchism in our society? What steps should we take?

Prospects for freedom and justice are limitless. The steps we should take depend on what we are trying to achieve. There are, and can be, no general answers. The questions are wrongly put. I am reminded of a nice slogan of the rural workers’ movement in Brazil (from which I have just returned): they say that they must expand the floor of the cage, until the point when they can break the bars. At times, that even requires defense of the cage against even worse predators outside: defense of illegitimate state power against predatory private tyranny in the United States today, for example, a point that should be obvious to any person committed to justice and freedom — anyone, for example, who thinks that children should have food to eat — but that seems difficult for many people who regard themselves as libertarians and anarchists to comprehend. That is one of the self-destructive and irrational impulses of decent people who consider themselves to be on the left, in my opinion, separating them in practice from the lives and legitimate aspirations of suffering people.

So it seems to me. I’m happy to discuss the point, and listen to counter-argument, but only in a context that allows us to go beyond shouting of slogans — which, I’m afraid, excludes a good deal of what passes for debate on the left, more’s the pity.

Noam

In another letter, Chomsky offered this expansion on his thoughts regarding a future society:

About a future society, I…may be repeating, but it’s something I’ve been concerned with every since I was a kid. I recall, about 1940, reading Diego Abad de Santillan’s interesting book After the Revolution, criticizing his anarchist comrades and sketching in some detail how an anarchosyndicalist Spain would work (these are >50 year old memories, so don’t take it too literally). My feeling then was that it looked good, but do we understand enough to answer questions about a society in such detail? Over the years, naturally I’ve learned more, but it has only deepened my skepticism about whether we understand enough. In recent years, I’ve discussed this a good deal with Mike Albert, who has been encouraging me to spell out in detail how I think society should work, or at least react to his “participatory democracy” conception. I’ve backed off, in both cases, for the same reasons. It seems to me that answers to most such questions have to be learned by experiment. Take markets (to the extent that they could function in any viable society — limited, if the historical record is any guide, not to speak of logic). I understand well enough what’s wrong with them, but that’s not sufficient to demonstrate that a system that eliminates market operations is preferable; simply a point of logic, and I don’t think we know the answer. Same with everything else.

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Anarchism is the political belief that society should have no government, laws, police, or other authority, but should be a free association of all its members. William Godwin, an important anarchist philosopher in Britain during the late 18th century, believed that the “euthanasia of government” would be achieved through “individual moral reformation”.

In the United States the two most significant figures in the anarchist movement were William Greene and Benjamin Tucker. In journals such as The Word and Liberty, they published the work of European anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin, Michael Bakunin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Leo Tolstoy. At this time anarchism was essentially a pacifist movement.

Several leading anarchists in Europe, including Johann Most and Emma Goldman, emigrated to the United States. They both argued that it was acceptable to use violence to overthrow capitalism.

Anarchists were blamed for the Haymarket Bombing in Chicago on 4th May, 1886. The authorities were unable to identify the person who threw the bomb but a group of anarchists, Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fisher, Louis Lingg and George Engel, who helped organized the meeting, were sentenced to death for “conspiracy to murder”.

In 1892 the Russian anarchist, Alexander Berkman, attempted to murder William Frick. Another immigrant, Gaetano Bresci, returned to Italy and assassinated King Umberto. Soon afterwards, another anarchist Leon Czolgosz, assassinated President William McKinley.

In January 1916 a group of anarchists began publishing the journal Blast. Alexander Berkman became editor and contributors included Emma Goldman, Mary Heaton Vorse and Robert Minor.

During the Red Scare in 1919 a large number of anarchists, including Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Mollie Steimer were deported from the United States. Some historians have argued that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants found guilty of murder, were both executed in 1927 for their anarchist beliefs.

In the early part of the 20th century the anarchist movement in Spain was the strongest in Europe. The main support came from the industrial workers of Barcelona and in 1911 activists formed the anarcho-syndicalist trade union, the National Confederation of Trabajo (CNT).

In the first few weeks of the Spanish Civil War an estimated 100,000 men joined Anarcho-Syndicalists militias. Anarchists also established the Iron Column, many of whose 3,000 members were former prisoners. In Guadalajara, Cipriano Mera, leader of the CNT construction workers in Madrid, formed the Rosal Column. The most important anarchist leader of this period was Buenaventura Durruti who was killed while fighting in Madrid on 20th November 1936. Durruti’s supporters in the CNT claimed that he had been murdered by members of the Communist Party (PCE).

In September 1936, President Manuel Azaña appointed the left-wing socialist, Francisco Largo Caballero as prime minister. Largo Caballero also took over the important role of war minister. Largo Caballero brought into his government four anarchist leaders, Juan Garcia Oliver (Justice), Juan López (Commerce), Federica Montseny (Health) and Juan Peiró (Industry). Montseny was the first woman in Spanish history to be a cabinet minister. Over the next few months Montseny accomplished a series of reforms that included the introduction of sex education, family planning and the legalization of abortion.

(1) Mikhail Bakunin and Sergi Nechayev, Catechism of a Revolutionist (1869)

The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion – the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose – to destroy it.

He despises public opinion. He hates and despises the social morality of his time, its motives and manifestations. Everything which promotes the success of the revolution is moral, everything which hinders it is immoral. The nature of the true revolutionist excludes all romanticism, all tenderness, all ecstasy, all love.

(2) Mikhail Bakunin, Marxism, Freedom and the State (1871)

I am a passionate seeker after Truth and a not less passionate enemy of the malignant fictions used by the “Party of Order”, the official representatives of all turpitudes, religious, metaphysical, political, judicial, economic, and social, present and past, to brutalise and enslave the world; I am a fanatical lover of Liberty; considering it as the only medium in which can develop intelligence, dignity, and the happiness of man; not official “Liberty”, licensed, measured and regulated by the State, a falsehood representing the privileges of a few resting on the slavery of everybody else; not the individual liberty, selfish, mean, and fictitious advanced by the school of Rousseau and all other schools of bourgeois Liberalism, which considers the rights of the individual as limited by the rights of the State, and therefore necessarily results in the reduction of the rights of the individual to zero.

No, I mean the only liberty which is truly worthy of the name, the liberty which consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers which are to be found as faculties latent in everybody, the liberty which recognises no other restrictions than those which are traced for us by the laws of our own nature; so that properly speaking there are no restrictions, since these laws are not imposed on us by some outside legislator, beside us or above us; they are immanent in us, inherent, constituting the very basis of our being, material as well as intellectual and moral; instead, therefore, of finding them a limit, we must consider them as the real conditions and effective reason for our liberty.

(3) Statement issued at an Anarchist Congress at Pittsburgh (1883)

All laws are directed against the working people. Even the school serves only the purpose of furnishing the offspring of the wealthy with those qualities necessary to uphold their class domination. The children of the poor get scarcely a formal elementary training, and this, too, is mainly directed to such branches as tend to producing prejudices, arrogance, and servility; in short, want of sense. The Church finally seeks to make complete idiots out of the mass and to make them forego the paradise on earth by promising a fictitious heaven. The capitalist press, on the other hand, takes care of the confusion of spirits in public life. The workers can therefore expect no help from any capitalistic party in their struggle against the existing system. They must achieve their liberation by their own efforts. As in former times, a privileged class never surrenders its tyranny, neither can it be expected that the capitalists of this age will give up their rulership without being forced to do it.

(4) Michael Schwab, speech at his trial for the Haymarket Bombing (September, 1887)

According to our vocabulary Anarchy is a state of society in which the only government is reason; a state of society in which all human beings do right for the simple reason that it is right, and hate wrong because it is wrong. In such a society no compulsion will be necessary. Anarchy is a dream, but only in the present. It is entirely wrong to use the word Anarchy as synonymous with violence. Violence is something, and Anarchy is another. In the present state of society violence is used on all sides, and therefore we advocated the use of violence against violence, but against violence only as a necessary means of defense.

(5) George Engel, speech at his trial (September, 1887)

Anarchism and Socialism are, according to my opinion, as like as one egg is to another. Only the tactics are different. Therefore, I say to the working classes, do not believe any longer in the ballot-box and in those ways and means that are open to you; but rather think about ways and means when the time comes, when the burden of the people becomes intolerable. And that is our crime. Because we have named to the people the ways and means by which they could free themselves in the fight against Capitalism, by reason of that, Anarchism is hated and persecuted in every state.

(6) Samuel Jones, the successful businessman and four-term mayor of Toledo, Ohio, was one of the first to try and introduce socialist ideas to local government. In his article, The New Patriotism: A Golden-Rule Government for Cities, he quoted Henry Demarest Lloyd on the subject of anarchy.

The ethics of the wild beast, the survival of the strongest, shrewdest, and meanest, have been the inspiration of our materialistic lives during the last quarter or half century. The fact in our national history has brought us today face to face with the inevitable result. We have cities in which a few are wealthy, a few are in what may be called comfortable circumstances, vast numbers are propertyless, and thousands are in pauperism and crime. Certainly, no reasonable person will contend that this is the goal that we have been struggling for; that the inequalities that characterize our rich and poor represent the idea that the founders of this republic saw when they wrote that “All men are created equal.”

The competitive idea at present dominant is most of our political and business life is, of course, the seed root of all the trouble. The people are beginning to understand that we have been pursuing a policy of plundering ourselves, that in the foolish scramble to make individuals rich we have been making all poor. “For a hundred years or so,” says Henry Demarest Lloyd, “our economic theory has been one of industrial government by the self-interest of the individual; political government by the self-interest of the individual we call anarchy.” It is one of the paradoxes of public opinion that the people of America, least tolerant of this theory of anarchy in political government, lead in practicing it in industry.

(7) Lyman Abbott, The Cause and Cure of Anarchism (Outlook, 22nd February, 1902)

Anarchism is defined by E. V. Zenker as: “the perfect, unfettered self-government of the individual, and consequently the absence of any kind of external government.” It rests upon the doctrine that no man has a right to control by force the action of any other man. Anarchism is defended on historic grounds: the evils are recited which have been wrought in human history by the employment of force compelling obedience by one will to another will, as they are seen in political and religious despotism and in the subjugation of women.

Anarchism is defended on religious grounds. Jesus Christ is cited as the first of anarchists; for did he not say, “Resist not evil: if one take away thy coat, give him thy cloak also; and if one smite thee upon the one cheek, turn to him the other also? What is this, we are asked, but a denial of the right to use force even in defense of one’s simplest and plainest rights?

Socialism, which is curiously confounded by the indiscriminating with anarchism, is its exact opposite. Anarchy is the doctrine that there should be no government control; socialism is the doctrine that the government should control everything.

The place in which to attack anarchism is where the offences grow which alone make anarchism possible. Let us secure the just, speedy, and impartial administration of law; let us elect legislators who seek honestly to conform human legislation to the divine laws of the social order, without fear or favour. The way to counteract hostility to law is to make laws which deserve to be respected.

(8) H. G. Wells, New Worlds for Old (1908)

That Anarchist world, I admit, is our dream; we do believe – well, I, at any rate, believe this present world, this planet, will some day bear a race beyond our most exalted and temerarious dreams, a race begotten of our wills and the substance of our bodies, a race, so I have said it, ‘who will stand upon the earth as one stands upon a footstool, and laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars,’ but the way to that is through education and discipline and law. Socialism is the preparation for that higher Anarchism; painfully, laboriously we mean to destroy false ideas of property and self, eliminate unjust laws and poisonous and hateful suggestions and prejudices, create a system of social right-dealing and a tradition of right-feeling and action. Socialism is the schoolroom of true and noble Anarchism, wherein by training and restraint we shall make free men.

(9) Alice Hamilton, Exploring the Dangerous Trades (1943)

Prince Peter Kropotkin was one of the most lovable persons I have ever met. He was a typical revolutionist of the early Russian type, an aristocrat who threw himself into the movement for emancipation of the masses out of a passionate love for his fellow man, and a longing for justice.

He stayed some time with us at Hull House, and we all came to love him, not only we who lived under the same roof but the crowds of Russian refugees who came to see him. No matter how down-and-out, how squalid even, a caller would be., Prince Kropotkin would give him a joyful welcome and kiss him on both cheeks.

It was most unfortunate that his visit to us came just a short time before the assassination of McKinley. That event woke up the dormant terror of anarchists which always lay close under the surface of Chicago’s thinking and feeling, ever since the Haymarket riot. It was known that Czolgosz, the assassin, had been in Chicago at the time when both Emma Goldman and Kropotkin were there, and a rumor started that he had met them and the plot had been of their making – Czolgosz had been their tool. Then the story came to involve Hull House, which had been the scene of these secret, murderous meetings.

(10) Charles Fickert, during the trial of Tom Mooney (January 1917)

This defendant and his fellow-anarchists, in the time of peace, murdered ten men and women because these anarchists were bent on destroying the very government which Lincoln preserved and defended. The question which concerns you, gentlemen, here, as well as every other citizen of this great republic, is either to destroy anarchy or the anarchists will destroy the State.

If the moral fibre of the people of this nation has been so weakened; if the seeds of anarchy have been so implanted in the body politic that we refuse or neglect to defend our citizens at home or abroad; when helpless women and children can be ruthlessly slain on the streets of our city, and those who murder them go unpunished, because those who have been sworn to enforce the laws have tailed through neglect or fear to do their duty – we can then say farewell to the greatness of our nation; our boasted civilization is then only a self-delusion resting on the edge of a political abyss.

(11) Molly Steimer, speech made in court during her trial under the Espionage Act (October, 1918)

Anarchism is a new social order where no group shall be governed by another group of people. Individual freedom shall prevail in the full sense of the word. Private ownership shall be abolished. Every person shall have an equal opportunity to develop himself well, both mentally and physically. We shall not have to struggle for our daily existence as we do now. No one shall live on the product of others. Every person shall produce as much as he can, and enjoy as much as he needs – receive according to his need. Instead of striving to get money, we shall strive towards education, towards knowledge.

While at present the people of the world are divided into various groups, calling themselves nations, while one nation defies another – in most cases considers the others as competitive – we, the workers of the world, shall stretch out our hands towards each other with brotherly love. To the fulfillment of this idea I shall devote all my energy, and, if necessary, render my life for it.

(12) Cyril Connolly, New Statesman (21st November 1936)

It is in Barcelona that the full force of the anarchist revolution becomes apparent. Their initials, CNT and FAI, are everywhere. They have taken over all the hotels, restaurants, cafes, trains, taxis, and means of communication, as well as all theatres, cinemas, and places of amusement. Their first act was to abolish the tip as being incompatible with the dignity of those who receive it, and to attempt to give one is the only act, short of making the Fascist salute, that a foreigner can be disliked for.

Spanish anarchism is a doctrine which has gone through three stages. The first was the conception of pure anarchy which grew out of the writings of Rousseau, Proudhon, Godwin, and to a lesser extent, Diderot and Tolstoy. The essence of this anarchist faith is that there exists in mankind a natural trend towards nobility and dignity; human relations based on a love of liberty combined with a desire to help each other (as shown for instance in the mutual generosity of the poor in slum districts in cases of sickness and distress) should in themselves be enough, given education and the right economic conditions, to provide a working basis for people to live on; State interference, armies, property, would be as superfluous as they were to the early Christians. The anarchist paradise would be one in which the instincts towards freedom, justice, intelligence and “bondad” in the human race develop gradually to the exclusion of all thoughts of personal gain, envy, and malice. But there exist two stumbling blocks to this ideal – the desire to make money and the desire to acquire power. Everybody who makes money or acquires power, according to the anarchists, does so to the detriment of himself and at the expense of other people, and as long as these instincts are allowed free run there will always be war, tyranny, and exploitation. Power and money must therefore be abolished altogether. At this point the second stage of anarchism begins, that which arises from the thought of Bakunin, the contemporary of Marx. He added the rider that the only way to abolish power and money was by direct action on the bourgeoisie in whom these instincts were incurably ingrained, and who took advantage of all liberal legislation, all concessions from the workers, to get more power and more money for themselves. “The rich will do everything for the poor but get off their backs,” Tolstoy has said. “Then they must be blown off,” might have been Bakunin’s corollary. From this time (the Eighties) dates militant anarchism with its crimes of violence and assassination. In most of its strongholds, Italy, Germany, Russia, it was either destroyed by Fascism or absorbed by Communism, which has usually seemed more practical, realisable, and adaptable to industrial countries; but in Spain the innate love of individual freedom, a personal dignity of the people, made them prefer it to Russian Communism, and the persecution which it underwent was never sufficient to blot it out.

Finally, in the last few years it has gone through a third transformation; in spite of its mystical appeal to the heart anarchism has always been an elastic and adaptable faith, and looking round for a suitable machinery to replace State centralisation it found syndicalism, to which it is now united. Syndicalism is a system of vertical rather than horizontal Trade Unions, by which, for instance, all the workers on this paper, editors, reviewers, printers and distributors, would delegate members to a syndicate which would negotiate with other syndicates for the housing, feeding, amusements, etc., of all the body. This anarcho-syndicalism through its organ, the CNT, has been able to get control of all the industries and agriculture of Catalonia and much of that in Andalusia, Valencia and Murcia, forming a more or less solid block from Malaga to the French frontier with considerable power also in the Asturias and Madrid. The executive militant spearhead of the body is the Federacion Anarquistica Iberica, usually pronounced as one word, FAI, which partly owing to acts of terrorism, partly to its former illegality, is clothed in mystery today. It is almost impossible to find out who and how many belong to it.

The ideal of the CNT and the FAI is libertarian Communism, a Spain in which the work and wealth is shared by all, about three hours’ work a day being enough to entitle anyone to sufficient food, clothing, education, amusement, transport, and medical attention. It differs from Communism because there must be no centralisation, no bureaucracy, and no leaders; if somebody does not want to do something, the anarchists argue, no good will come of making them do it. They point to Stalin’s dictatorship as an example of the evils inherent in Communism. The danger of anarchism, one might argue, is that it has become such a revolutionary weapon that it may never know what to do with the golden age when it has it, and may exhaust itself in a perpetual series of counter-revolutions. Yet it should be an ideal not unsympathetic to the English, who have always honoured freedom and individual eccentricity and whose liberalism and whiggery might well have turned to something very similar had they been harassed for centuries, like the Spanish proletariat, by absolute monarchs, militant clergy, army dictatorships and absentee landlords.

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